Knitted or crocheted garments, particularly of wool, have conventionally, in the past, been dried by placing them over towels, or the like, and the process takes extended periods of time because of the absorbent nature of the yarn and the fact that the garment is dried one side at a time.
A search of the records at the United States Patent and Trademark Office revealed the following patents which are related to, but do not anticipate my invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,521,100 (Sublette) entitled "Garment Drier" is directed to a passive garment drier which is made up of two sections hinged to each other and each containing a plurality of finely spaced apertures therethrough to permit the passage of air. The garment to be dried is placed in the unfolded rack and then it is folded into a closed position and hung. The most that this patent contributed to the prior art is the recognition of the fact that the drying time for knitted or crocheted garments is very long and the practice of the past was very inconvenient. However, it does not recognize, among other things, the desirability of using forced air to accelerate the drying process. Thus, the device still does not reduce the drying time for a knitted garment to a reasonable time period.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,192,081 (Erickson) is directed to a food dehydrating machine in which air is heated and passed over the surface of food to cause it to become dehydrated. There is no suggestion of the use of this approach for the drying of knitted garments and, because the patent discloses the heating of the air that passes over the food to be dehydrated, it would not be usable in drying a knitted garment for, as is well known, if such a garment is heated during the drying process it will shrink. Further, there is no indication of any ability to change the size of the drying system to accommodate different sizes of garments, for example. Once again, the air passes over, not through, the product being dried. The disclosure of this patent is basically confined, in its use, to the food dehydrating field.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,256,617 (Konstandt) is directed to apparatus for drying laundry in a hanging position by means of air passed over the laundry, not through it. As is well known, knitted garments, such as wet sweaters or the like, cannot be hung during drying because they will stretch; therefore, the device of Konstandt would be worthless as far as the drying of knitted garments, which is the objective of my invention, is concerned.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,197,178 (Gates) is directed to dish drying apparatus in which heated air is passed over the surface of dishes standing in a rack. This device would obviously not be useful in any way in connection with the drying of knitted garments.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,470,646 (Richardson) is directed to a clothes dryer in which heated air is passed over the surface of garments hung in the clothes dryer. There is no suggestion of passing the air through the garments and there is no suggestion of being able to adjust the dimensions of the dryer to accommodate various-sized garments.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,856,700 (Wales) is directed to a laundry dryer that is convertible into a coiffure dryer. Air, in the laundry drying application, passes air over the surface of laundry hanging over tubular clothes racks 9, 9' and 10, 10'. As is well known, such a structure could not be used for drying sweaters because they would stretch and otherwise distort.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,939,574 (Garot) is directed to a linen dryer in which the linen is suspended from bars and air is passed over the linens to dry them. Such a structure is not usable in connection with knitted garments because they would stretch in the hanging process. No provision is made for garments of varying lengths and the patent covers subject matter which is not anticipatory of my invention.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to overcome the various difficulties and disadvantages of the prior art devices, as set forth hereinbefore.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a garment dryer that is particularly adapted for the drying of knitted or crocheted garments and which is capable of adjustably receiving garments of different sizes to permit their drying without distortion of the shape of the garments.